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Otter celebrates RISE Complex at ISU

POCATELLO — Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter toured the Research and Innovation in Science and Engineering (RISE) Complex at ISU and promoted the Idaho Global Entrepreneurial Mission (IGEM) Wednesday.
"I am passionate about IGEM because it's our future," Otter said. "We are engaging university campuses because from universities come the workforce of the next generation.
"IGEM combines investors with our research brain power to help Idaho become a major player in the world as we establish intellectual property," Otter said.
"This is a collaborative effort among our universities," the governor said. "Universities are using each others' campuses to transform how people do research.
"IGEM is a crystal of ideas and action that innovators will want to be part of," Otter said. "There's a lot of things we can do together; we can't afford to piece our money out between the universities and the Idaho Department of Commerce."
As an example, Otter cited the Center for Advanced Energy Studies.
"CAES puts out new innovative products," Otter said. "For an investment of $1.8 million, CAES has attracted $73 million in grants."
"We really support this," said Doug Sayer with Premier Technology. The practical application of research is really important.
Basic research is what researchers do at universities, Sayer said. Applied research is practical and is going to fix something.
Eric Burgett, Ph.D., director of the RISE Complex, said the nano-tech world and the nuclear world are coming together at the complex.
Both basic research and applied research are done at the complex.
Basic research is when researchers study a particular subject.
Applied research can be explained as "how do I take this cool thing I discovered and apply it? We need to market what we're doing here," said Burgett. "All applied research needs to be entrepreneurial."